Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

what and put her back. His future access to technology at home depended on it.

Okay, so the previous investigators hadn’t missed anything. Luci sighed and rubbed her aching back. She’d separated the file into two parts, the original police file and Miss Weena’s notes and drawings.

Maybe some of her police genes did come from Miss Weena. She’d done a good job. In addition to her notes, she’d made several diagrams of the murder scene and the various positions of the suspects during the period when the murder had probably taken place.

Except for one thing….

Luci searched through the pages again. No, it wasn’t here. There was one witness Miss Weena hadn’t interviewed. The victim, Miss Gracie Seymour.

It was a long shot, no pun intended, since she’d been shot in the back, and there’d been no sign of a struggle, but if anyone knew about her life, and what motives people might have, it was Miss Gracie herself.

As if Luci’s thoughts had summoned her, Miss Gracie drifted down through the ceiling, landing in the general vicinity of Miss Weena’s chair, bringing a welcome cool into the stuffy room.

Luci wondered again why she hadn’t been curious about this very personal family murder before now. Granted, excess curiosity wasn’t a family trait, but she was an officer of the law. And Miss Gracie was special, had always been special to her, Luci realized.

“Why do I call you Miss Gracie?” Luci asked. One of the things she’d learned from the file was that Gracie was technically younger than her—if aging stopped with death. The formal “miss” was reserved for those older.

“I suppose it’s because you were young when you met me.”

“Can I stop now?”

“Please. I was wondering when you’d figure things out.” Gracie looked at the empty bed. “I thought…”

“Yeah, we all thought,” Luci said almost glumly. It wasn’t very Seymour of her, but she couldn’t help it. Maybe the baby was sucking the Seymour out of her? “She’s postponed it.”

“Really? Why?”

Luci hesitated, but couldn’t think of anything but the truth. “She—found out that Henry didn’t…” She couldn’t make herself say it.

Miss Gracie looked surprised, but not excessively so. “Really? I wonder who did?”

She didn’t sound curious.

“You—don’t know?”

Gracie smiled. “Well, I was shot in the back.”

Luci wanted to ask her how it felt, but it wasn’t that easy to pry into someone’s death, especially someone with a placid and closed expression on her—ectoplasm.

“But you did—hang around after—and you’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” Luci felt bound to point out.

“I suppose I did and could have, but I didn’t.” Gracie extended her legs, as if in a recliner. “It didn’t seem to matter that much. It was done—and I had other things on my mind.”

“Charles?”

Gracie’s ectoplasm trembled. “Weena told you?”

“Just his name and that he died before…”

“…I could tell him that I loved him.” Gracie’s sigh was chilly across Luci’s face and neck. “I’m glad you didn’t make that mistake, Luci.” Her smile and her eyes were at peace. “But what does all this old news have to do with Weena’s planned demise?”

“She says she won’t leave until she’s solved the crime.”

Gracie’s eyes widened then, and the tremor in her ectoplasm was more than slight. “Really? That can’t be good.”

“It’s worse than that. She has a plan.”

“Oh my.” Gracie almost faded away. “Do you know what it is?”

“No, but she’s giving a tea party tomorrow.”

“A tea party? That’s—scary for some reason.”

“I have a feeling that the suspect list is also the guest list, but at least I talked her out of inviting some of the Hepplewhites.”

“How’d you do that?”

“I told her Mickey would kill her before she could solve the crime.”

Gracie laughed. “That might work.”

Luci felt her stomach tighten for a long moment, then gradually release.

Gracie looked ectoplasmically alarmed. “Luci, is it time?”

“It better not be,” Luci said. “I told Miss Weena I’d try to wait until after the party.”

“Haven’t you learned not to make promises you can’t keep?” Gracie grinned. “Well, you can always keep your legs crossed. And breathe. I’ve heard that works.”

Her stomach tightened again, for longer this time. “Maybe you better get Mickey.”

“Maybe I better.” She vanished with a pop that was almost audible.

Hours later, after Mickey had her settled back in the car, still packing baby, and they were heading home, Luci said, “Sorry about that. I even remember reading about Braxton-Hicks pains.”

Mickey looked tired and anxious, but he managed a grin for her. “I understand it’s not a real pregnancy if you don’t have at least one false alarm.”

Luci looked down at her stomach. It looked real to her. At least the false alarm had taken Mickey’s mind off the tea party and Miss Weena. She was pretty sure Mickey wasn’t up to dealing with another Seymour murder, even an old one.

Driving home through streets made quiet by night’s progress, Luci drifted between sleeping and waking, longing for her bed and oblivion. But a small part of her brain was also processing what she’d learned and read today. Did Delaney know about Gracie’s old love? If he didn’t, how would he feel about it? Miss Weena had opened a door to the past, and secrets had a way of slipping out openings, usually at the most inconvenient times.

Another question drifted up out of the ether of her mind. If Gracie’s love had died, why had she stayed here when she died? She could have been with him, apparently. Which lead to the next question, why was she here? No one else in the family had lingered. Delaney had stayed for Gracie, but why had Gracie stayed?

And did she have the right to ask her? It didn’t seem to have anything to do with the murder, but it might. Somewhere in Gracie’s past lay the key to her death, but was it the right thing to do to dig around in there? What might be the result? If Gracie moved on, willingly or unwillingly, what would happen to Delaney? And if Delaney left, how would